Leap of Faith - August 19, 1963 - S3-E3
Revealing mistake: The newspaper Father John holds up has the headline "Youth Hit By Train", but the article text under it talks about Diane Feinstein's election race against John Van de Kamp for California governor in 1990, the year the episode was filmed. Other article texts do not match either. The text under the Bangladesh Flood article talks about Germany's reunification, which also happened in 1990, after the Soviet collapse. The paper is a copy of the Los Angeles Times with the titles and date changed. (00:05:10)
Chosen answer: Per the Quantum leap page at http://www.scifi.com/quantum/episodes/season5.html. 8 August 1953: An enigmatic leap lands Sam in a Pennsylvania tavern, as his own grown self on the day of his birth. As Al and Gushie work frantically to locate him, Sam befriends a wise bartender (popular character actor McGill, who'd appeared in a different role in the very first "leap") and a group of coal miners. As a host of familiar-looking faces pass through the bar - with different identities than Sam remembers - Sam ponders his life of leaping with Al the bartender, who tells Sam he controls his own destiny. Pressed for more, Al the bartender simply shrugs and says, "Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." Sam realizes he must right at least one more wrong before he can go home, and leaps back to tell Al Calvavicci's wife Beth (from "M.I.A.") to wait for Al, who will survive Vietnam and come home to her. The closing title cards state that Beth and Al have four daughters and will shortly celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary ... and that Sam Beckett never returned home.
Boobra